BACHELOR OF SOCIAL WORK PROGRAM

SOCIAL WORK PEDAGOGY The BSW is a sequenced program in which the early years combine the freedom to choose from a broad range of units in the liberal arts with prescribed units of study, which provide a foundation for focussed professional studies in the final two years. The prerequisite units of study in the first two years ensure that students acquire core knowledge from other disciplines about the nature of individuals and the nature of societies. This provides the foundation for studies in the final two years where the understandings about social work’s unique perspective – understanding and intervening at the intersection of people and their complex environments – are developed. In addition, providing choice of elective units of study from diverse fields gives the students the opportunity to further develop their skills in critical analysis and promotes an ongoing interest in learning. 8 Since 1997, class work in the third and fourth years has been organised as an integrated Issue Based Learning (IBL) curriculum. The adoption of this approach followed a major review of the philosophy, pedagogy and structure of the final two years of the BSW, and the piloting and evaluation of the new curriculum by the University’s Institute for Teaching and Learning. In summary the curriculum incorporates: • an integrated, issue based curriculum structure rather than a subject and method based curriculum structure • a primary emphasis on learning rather than a primary emphasis on teaching • an explicit rather than implicit expectation that students are active participants in their education • an emphasis on processes and outcomes from a preoccupation with inputs and accumulation of discipline and subject knowledge